Israel advocacy alert
We have become accustomed to conspiracy theories linking Israel to various tragedies around the world…writes Emily Gian.
Emily Gian
It therefore was no surprise to me that someone would pen an article in which last week’s terrorist attacks in Boston were blamed partly on U.S. foreign policy and partly on Israel. What may surprise some is that this comes directly from an employee of the United Nations.
However, those who follow the UN Human Rights Council would not be surprised if I told you that the culprit is Richard Falk, UN HRC special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories or that this latest antic comes from this delusional character.
In a piece that appeared in the Foreign Policy Journal entitled ‘A Commentary on the Marathon Murders’, Falk declares “as long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy”. In a criticism of President Obama foreign policy in regards to the Middle East, Falk refers to the “strong pushback by Israel and its belligerent leader, Bibi Netanyahu” and that Obama “has given up altogether, succumbing to the Beltway ethos of Israel”. He continues, “Obama’s March trip to Israel was highlighted by his March 21st speech in Jerusalem, which was delivered as a love letter to the Israeli public rather than qualifying as a good faith effort to demonstrate his belief in a just peace”.
But it was not just Israel that was in Falk’s sight when it came to commenting on the bombings. Quoting the line, “those to whom evil is done/do evil in return”, he declares that the “American global domination project is bound to generate all kids of resistance in the post-colonial world”.
All of this from a man who is on the payroll of the UN Human Rights Council.
The Geneva based organisation UN Watch immediately sent a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice demanding that Falk be condemned. Expressing their outrage that he had exploited “a moment of tragedy and mourning to advance a disturbing political agenda” UN Watch stated that Falk’s “odious and preposterous remarks insult last week’s victims and discredit the cause of human rights and the founding principles of the United Nations”.
In any other job, such vitriolic words would most certainly elicit some sort of rebuke from a higher authority, but silence from the UN and its refusal to condemn Falk is not surprising. Furthermore, UN Spokesman Farhan Haq said, “Richard Falk is an independent expert… The Secretary-General did not appoint him and is not responsible for his views”. Perhaps the United Nations is not responsible for the individual views of their employees, but certainly some responsibility needs to be taken in order to protect the integrity of the organisation?
The United States did respond though, with a Statement by Erin Pelton, United States Mission to the UN Spokesperson, who declared “the United States completely rejects the provocative and offensive commentary by Mr. Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, regarding the recent terrorist attacks in Boston, Massachusetts. The United States has previously called for Mr. Falk’s resignation for his numerous outrageous statements, and these comments underscore once more the absurdity of her service as a UN Special Rapporteur”.
Falk of course has form when it comes to bias against Israel. In 2008, he was expelled from Israel because “beyond the imbalance in his mandate, the bias is further exacerbated by the highly politicized views of the rapporteur himself, in legitimizing Hamas terrorism and drawing shameful comparisons to the Holocaust”. In 2009 he accused the IDF of war crimes against the Palestinians and the majority of the media published his claims without looking into Falk’s long history of bias against Israel. The Australian did expose Falk, quoting US Department spokesman Robert Wood who said, “we’ve expressed our concern many times about the special rapporteur’s views on dealing with that question… we’ve found the rapporteur’s views to be anything but fair. We find them to be biased. We’ve made that very clear”. And finally in 2011, he posted an extremely antisemitic and highly offensive cartoon on his blog in which Jews and Americans were depicted as bloodthirsty dogs. When he was exposed, he initially lied saying, “I know nothing about such a cartoon, and would never publish such a thing, ever”. Later, when he realised the internet has a way of coming back to bite you he weakly explained “Maybe I do not understand the cartoon, and if it offends in this way I have removed it from the blog. It may be in bad taste to an extent I had not earlier appreciated, but I certainly didn’t realise that it could be viewed as antisemitic, and still do not realise”.
For a full list of Falk’s rap sheet, click here.
Emily Gian is the Israel Advocacy Analyst at the Zionist Federation of Australia and a PhD Candidate in Israeli Literature at the University of Melbourne
My only criticism is that Falk should have described the “global domination project” more accurately as the “DGE (Disguised Global Empire) Project”.
Falk deserves great credit for standing up to the arrested thinking
that the PR and propaganda term “Terrorism” has been used by the
DGE (Disguised Global Empire) to short circuit any rational thought
about the “why” of these ‘blowback’ actions of powerless
people from the violent and vicious boarders and territories in which
the DGE murders ‘subjects’ with impunity (as shown by Wikileaks
and Manning’s brave “outing” of the EMPIRE in the “Collateral
Murder” video).
Falk is another truth-teller and whistle-blower being hectored and
attacked by the disguised Empire that he, like Assange, Manning,
Oliver Stone, Chris Hedges, Sheldon Wolin, Glen Greenwald, and others are EXPOSING
as an EMPIRE. And they are all being attacked because the greatest danger to a highly disguised Global Empire is to “called-out”, recognized, and exposed as the Empire that it really is!
It is this disguised corporate, financial, militarist, media,
legal, and political Global EMPIRE, only posing as the US, U.K.,
Germany, Israel, NATO, et al., that is the proximate cancerous CAUSE
of all these crimes against the Empire’s ‘subjects’ in the
exploited oil territories, and increasingly against those who think
of themselves as ‘citizens’, but are treated as ‘subjects’
within the metropole of the EMPIRE in their own ‘Homelands” —
and those supposed citizens ‘captured’ inside an Empire need to
be as concerned as the French under the Vichy government disguising
the Nazi Empire because of the great Jewish humanitarian, Hannah Arendt’s, prescient warning:
“Empire abroad entails tyranny at home”.
Best to all in confronting and surviving this disguised Global
Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Alan, I think you have lost your moral compass – you certainly seem to be losing your mind. Of course there are many opportunities for you and Falk to spruik your political agendas and make heroes out of people who have caused the innocent and uninvolved in your conspiracy theories great pain and sorrow. You can start a blog: Falk has one on which he spills his one-sided vitriol constantly. I am wondering when you are going to add Muhammad Atta and the Tsarnaev brothers to your list of heroes; real “salt of the earth” guys out there bringing the battle to the disgusting EMPIRE!
But, really, for you – like Falk – to use the pain and suffering of others who have been injured by a despicable act of cowardous and murderous criminal injustice to spruik your own political agenda is just appalling. While the rest of the world sits back and waits for some kind of explanation from the surviving Tsarnaev brother as to why they perpetrated this misery on the people of Boston, you and Falk claim to have it all worked out. Well, bravo for you! You obviously have a crystal ball!
“…to use the pain and suffering of others who have been injured by a despicable act of cowardous and murderous criminal injustice to spruik your own political agenda is just appalling.”
“If you can look, historically, there was a big change after 9/11, and I am sure that after the tragic bombing in Boston, people will identify more with Israel and its struggle against terrorism and we can maintain that support.” – Ron Dermer, diplomatic advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
So incredibly succint, compressed, non-convoluted, Alan, a clear indication that you may continue to roam the avenues of wisdom as an out-patient, hoping for a full recovery.
As the prodigy of Marcuse and Chomsky, kinda two head post-marxist monster flagship also known as” HMS Meshuge”, in your heavily precipitated , excessive verbosity, you missed out on the predilection your exploted cum impoverished oil slaves have for financing what some totally “abnormal” folk call “Global Terrorism”.
Right there under your blocked nose there are the vestiges of a certain 9/11, a recent noisy interlude in Boston, all converging to the powder keg we call Gaza, where the children of Mohammed toy arround with fire while brandishing bandanas printed in the factories of hate. For all they contain inside that mental- vacuous sphere covered in the green bandanas is unlimited cells of ignorance garnished with the venom of anti Semitism, something that – not so strange to your clinical condition – escaped you.
From your vantage point of total inebriation with destructive zeal, you are blinded by what the civilised world calls “Bestiality, Destruction, Stupidity” promoted by your fellow sufferers as “BDS”.
Otherwise, fear not, you make perfect sense…………………..
Falk has not said Israel was involved in the bambing. There is no conspiracy theory – only a convenient smear by professional hasbarites. And Obama and US administrations have been arming, funding and shielding Israel continued expansion of settlements, demolitions of Palestinian homes, destruction of fields by armed settlers and the system of military rule that makes an independent Palestinian stae impossible.
The editors will probably remove this but the facts cannot be concealed forever.
no, Ben E, hereyou are in your full editorial splendour. Why remove the truth !!
Israel cannot and will not make a Palestinian state possible and shall, indeed, continue its policy of military control of a populace which, just as you, is bent on twisting values, ideological, – as your field of “expertese” – socio-political, demographical etc. as the sole purpose of the palestinian leaders, to which material destruction of the “persecutor” Zionist, as you enjoy calling your enemies, is the very core of their very existence. As your palestinians exhault the virtues of Jew hatred into a dream of clearing of Jews the land of Zion, so the Jews will continue to claim their ancestral right over their own land and continue to remind your people of each nation’s existential space.
What, you thought that only your people have the right to use all means possible to realise their national ideals !!!! You would happily like the Jews to sit pretty and “civilised” and assist in their “traditional” meek and submissive way the rival active tradition of a “culture” of aggressive, expansionist and intollerant savage behaviour.
One essential function of the Israeli nation is to kick arse real good and anyone posing as a willing target is most welcome !!! You are only getting what you are asking for, so quit complaing !!!
Machiavellian or not, the kind of rampant absurdities employed by the pro Palestinian camp in their desperate propaganda manipulations, are bound to elicit rejections from all political entities, governments, which, of late have tolerated the Palestinian agenda to influence their foreign affairs discourse.
One would expect traditional Western locations to draw a line of decency in their populist support for the Palestinian forays into their socio-political structures, an ostensive agent of a deterioration of their own valuable democratic ethics.
Otherwise, of course, the analyssis by Emily Gian is simply an intellectual delight.